


Language of Love: Prompts of Angst and Romance

by MonikaFileFan



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Smut, True Love, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2019-09-29 11:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17202881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonikaFileFan/pseuds/MonikaFileFan
Summary: A few tumblr prompts: enjoy the MSR loveCh.1: That Night in 2014- Pre S-10 (Angst)Ch.2: First Night Home- Post FTF (Romance)Ch.3: All He Will Ever Live For- S-9 (Angst/Romance)Ch.4: A Third Miracle- Post Series (Romance)Ch.5: One Worried Mulder- Pre S-10 (Angst/Romance) Ch.1 SequelCh.6: Wonders Of The Witching Hour- Post Series (Fluff/Romance)Ch.7: Worth Living- S-5 (Angst/Romance)Ch.8: A Lie To Find The Truth- S-5 (Angst)Ch.9: A Dance In The Dark- Post Series (Romance/Smut)Ch.10: When IT Happens- S-3 (Humor/Early Romance)Ch.11: Undertow- Pre-Revival (Angst)Ch.12: Crumbs And Oven Mitts- S-5 (Fluff)





	1. That Night in 2014

 

_Prompts: "You're more than that."// "You're the one I wanna wake up next to."_

_\---_

_2014_

He swings the door open, bouncing it off the wall, and she doesn’t even flinch.

“Stop! Stop, Scully,” he pleads.

She tosses a fist full of random shirts from their shared dresser drawer into her open suit case. Sniffling, as she tries to hide her blotchy face and puffy eyes, she rushes to her side of the closet so quickly he sees her stumble.

“Christ, Mulder,” she huffs, pausing only to yank suit after suit off the rack. “You have no idea—no damn clue how badly I want to.”

His heart pounds achingly hard in his chest. He told her to do this. Hell, he fucking _egged_ her on. She’s better off, he thinks. He knows. But now he realizes that she finally _knows_ that, too.

“You’re more than that,” he touches her busy hands with his, grasping at any and every piece of her he can from across the threshold of their marriage bed. “I didn’t mean to say that. You’re so much more than just my doctor to me.”

“Oh, Mulder…”

Squeezing her trembling hands, he locks onto her wet, leaking eyes, and begs her to see the Mulder they both know is hidden just beneath his dark haze of depression. “You’re my partner; my love; my light; my life; my wife… You’re my Scully. And that’s fucking everything!”

Tears fall freely from her red rimmed eyes, down the swell of her cheeks. He holds back the overwhelming urge to kiss them clean—to lay her down and cleanse their stressed and depressed bodies anew.

He knows deep down that won’t fix anything—won’t fix them. Nothing will unless they fix themselves first.

Silence reigns as they stare, breathless. One last look into one another’s broken souls before she leaves.

“You’re the only one I wanna wake up next to. My everything,” she chokes, sweeping her thumbs across the backs of his tense hands. “You’re my other half; my love; my husband; my Mulder.” She tugs her hands away slowly and looks down.

His heart clenches. He can’t breathe without her already.

With her chin to her chest, shoulders slumped, she zips the luggage and sighs. And he’s absolutely positive he will hear the echo of that zipper in his mind forever.

“And that’s exactly why I have to leave.”

She reaches out and cups his face tenderly, painfully.

He feels his lip quiver for the loss of her, even as she stands before him.

He wants so fucking badly to cry out, beg her to stop—to stay.

Yet he knows he shouldn’t, can’t, so he doesn’t. And with a hurried kiss to his cheek, she leaves.

He sinks to the floor, crying loudly into the night and well after the sun shines through _his_ window, highlighting a marriage bed of one.

\---

 


	2. First Night Home

_Prompts: "I can't sleep. Can I sleep here?"// "I'll keep you warm."_

_\---_

She’s still cold, utterly freezing as she walks through the hallway of _‘things left unfinished’_. Without a clear cut medical reason after days of recovery as to why, she’s been this way, cold, since their rescue. Since Mulder saved her from an ice laden land of snow and viruses of unknown origin.

_Mulder_. Jesus Christ, Mulder just went to the ends of the earth for her, and now she’s at his door about to ask him for more.

She shivers as she raps her stiff knuckles off the wood under the number 42. Even during the worst of conditions, their usual _knock three times_ cipher is always comforting to hear.

He swings the door open and does his quick assessment with understanding eyes. He nods once and steps aside and locks his door. With his hand at her back, and chest in her face, he patiently waits.

“I can’t sleep. Can I stay here?” she asks with nothing but hope in her voice.

She can’t look him in the eye yet, and he knows that. “I know.” He knows so much yet not nearly enough.

She breathes him in right there, teetering on the threshold of lovers and friends. Deeply, she inhales his divine Mulder-musk, his aftershave, and deodorant. His heat. God, she’s just so fucking cold.

She feels his hand slide up her back, gently navigating its way north to the beacon of her thawing heart. Her spine willingly curves into his graze and her head lolls all the way back, relaxing against his warm palm at the base of her skull. Oh, she’d know his touch anywhere, anyway, anyhow.

He’s her one and five billion, too.

“You’re freezing, Scully,” he breathes, his balmy breath tickling her near glacial nose. And all she can do is nod along his hand, sliding the pads of her chilled fingertips up his solid chest as she melts into him. Fire blazes within his iris hearth of green and gold; and her soul burns with it. “I’ll keep you warm.”

And oh God, she’s warm already.

She gasps as the back of his deft fingers skim up her jaw and along her cheek, covering half of her face with his ever reassuring presence. Pulling her flush, he presses a soft, firm, fiery hot kiss between her brows for what seems like an eternity. Yet even that with him, will never be enough.

Her breath is gone, stolen right from her heaving chest. And she doesn’t give a damn, because he’s nuzzling her nose with his own now and his plump lips are hovering just above her readied ones.

But still, he waits. He waits for her to decide what they do next—where they go from here. It’s up to her now, just like it’s always been, she realizes. He’s been there, ready and waiting, hovering within her reach for so long that she can’t remember a time when he wasn’t _hers_ to be hovered over. All she has to do is reach out and claim him as such.

As hers.

Gripping at his threadbare grey shirt, she pulls him down and covers his lips with her own in a kiss so perfect, so complete, that nothing could ever feel unfinished between them again.

His thumb rubs across her cheek bone as he deepens the caress of her lips. Her mouth opens freely as he kisses her softly and meticulously. Her mouth opens eagerly as his dominating tongue sweeps along hers and she moans, desperate to taste more.

She grabs him and pulls him even closer, feels him hot and hard along her belly. Sensually, he licks each of her swollen lips through her mewling and just barely sucks the bottom one between his teeth while he glides his hands down to her hips and rests his forehead on hers.

“I want to always keep you warm, Scully,” he whispers, sultry and sweet.

She brings her now heated hands up to cradle his face—to let the prickle of his Antarctic scruff remind her of how far he’s gone for her, how far he will always go. And she tells him along his lips, “show me, Mulder.”

So he does exactly that, and then some.

Shedding their clothes and baring their souls within the confines of apartment 42, they steam the widows throughout the night and warm one another from the inside out on their first night home.

_\---_


	3. All He Will Ever Live For

#63 “I am home”//#94 “I won’t lose you too.”

——

Scully hums softly in the dark and from the deep tone in her voice, I know she’s just barely clinging onto the edge of awareness. Being as I’ve had more than eight years of experience in listening to a drowsy Scully, I know I have about 45 more seconds before sleep claims her.

I haven’t seen her nor our son in four months—haven’t gazed into their endless pools of blue in far too long, and It’s slowly killing me from the inside out.

The exchanging of emails had started almost a month ago after I finally fell to my knees emotionally and contacted her. And as thrilling as her responses were, I honestly could not handle receiving one more with her heartfelt, sorrowful words taunting me and crushing my heart from across the country. So I’ve succumbed to the overpowering need to touch my love and my son, even if it may kill me in the end. At least then I’d die with the vision of my son’s sweet face freshly imprinted in my mind.

Selfish of me, yes, but truth nonetheless.

Forced separation has made me a very desperate man. And if I have learned anything in my many years of fighting the good fight, it’s that desperate men do dangerous things in the name of love.

Scully may just kill me herself if she sees me climb through her window—risking my life and possibly theirs as well. But the utter state of despair that we both find ourselves suffocating in, has already begun to put ourselves at more risk than is needed. And on a night like tonight, I can only hope she’s more open to fulfilling our emotional needs rather than the rational ones.

I’ve been fully assured by our trusted allies that my night spent here will go unnoticed. So as I further open the bathroom window that has been purposely left ajar for my silent entry, I can only hope that Scully hasn’t picked up the habit of rocking William to sleep with a burp rag in one hand and her Sig in the other.

A chance to kiss the love of my life again. A chance to hold my son. Even if it is only for one night; a chance is what we _need_.  

I shed my jacket and quietly walk around the corner as to not startle her or the baby. Coming all this way only to have Scully shoot me again would not be my idea of a joyous reunion.

Her bedroom is dark—sans the familiar dim, flickering table lamp I had knocked over one night during a rather wild bout of lovemaking that’s now highlighting her lush copper hair and beautiful relaxed profile. Wow, Scully is even more stunning than I remember. Seeing her cradling our precious miracle along her chest, instantly summons hot tears to brim along my lids and I happily welcome every drop.

Taking three, four, five large yet hesitant steps towards her, I watch as her eyelids flutter and fly open. I smile and slowly kneel at her feet as she furrows her brows and gasps her mouth wide open.

“Shhh, Scully…” I try and calm her as I feel her whole body stiffen along her knees and watch her chest heave in air.

“Mulder? she whispers, shocked while clutching William tighter. I nod, causing my tears to trickle down my face and into her satin covered lap. “Mulder!”

“Hi.” My chest is suddenly tight and the lump growing in my throat is nearly choking me.

Yet, this is the best I’ve felt since I kissed her just three feet behind me with our son held between us. The best I’ve felt since before my presence endangered us all.

She grasps onto my hand that’s massaging her knee and white knuckles her slender fingers along mine until she’s fully convinced I’m real. “What—what are you doing here?” Her eyes are wild as they dance over my face, chin quivering. “Oh my God, Mulder! Oh God!” Emotion fills her frantic voice while she pulls my upper half into her chest, nearly jostling William awake.

Unable to hold back anymore, my arm snakes around her hips and I slide my trembling hand under her silky night shirt, retracing the soft familiar curves of her body back into my fingertips. I feel her hot tears soak into my hair while I touch William’s little hand poking out from his blanket.

“Scully… I’ve missed you so much, Scully.” I let myself go into her warm breast while she kisses the top of my head over and over, moving to claw her fingers along my back and grip onto my shirt.

“Me too, Mulder, so much. But you’re in danger here. You know this! Oh, Jesus, Mulder, you have to go home,” she shakes her head and sobs. “Even though I’ve prayed for this moment every single night, you have to go home.”

“I am home.”

“Mulder—“

“Scully, when I’m with you, I’m home. That will never change. No matter where I am.”

She sighs and I lean my head up to stare at her again. She meets me halfway before I can blink and kisses me soundly, tasting me, remembering _us_.

And for the first time in four months, I feel free.

Scully reluctantly lets my bottom lip slide through her teeth and looks down at our sleeping boy. “His hair is darker and his eyes are changing. They’re your hazel green now.”

“Really?” I rasp. “I always hoped he’d keep your beautiful blue ones. But, I’ll definitely be okay with him getting my height though.”

She fights a smirk and shifts his lax body weight over to my readied arm. I feel her intense stare burning into the side of my face, but I can’t look away from my child just yet.

“After everything…” She pauses, swiping at her wet cheeks. “I can’t lose you too. We can’t.”

My chest tightens at her painful words as I press a kiss to Williams soft forehead.

“You won't, but I’m dying without you—without you both.” The thought of returning to the lonely hellhole I just came from—of dragging myself back down into the darkness of hiding in solitude, makes want to cling to her and never let go. But I’ll do it in a heartbeat to protect my family.

“You won’t,” I promise strongly, knowing I that shouldn’t while I nuzzle along the delicate skin and fine brown hair of our son. “It’s safe. And we have tonight.”

Her fingers comb through my hair, the same way they always have, and I tighten my grip around her waist.

“Tonight, Mulder.” Pressing another kiss to William’s cheek, I gaze up to be pulled into her gleaming sea of blue. I know I’m crying heavily now when she runs both hands tenderly through my hair, around my ears, and cups my face as she wipes my sorrow clean with her thumbs. Scully leans in once more and kisses me with enough passion to fill in the cracks of my broken heart. “Let’s make it count.”

And we do, as we spend every waking moment touching, tasting, pleasuring, and holding one another until the sun threatens to rise.

I hesitantly leave the same way I came; with tears in my eyes and an ache in my chest. But with the fresh taste of my Scully tingling on my lips, and the strong scent of my son on my skin, I leave with a picture of William in my pocket and ‘home’ beating within my heart.

That’s so much more than with which I came; and that is all I’ll ever live for.

——


	4. A Third Miracle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully is beyond ready for her pregnancy to end, and for their baby to be born.

\---

_This was a one word prompt that I had written a long time ago and forgotten about._

 

This is a blessing, a miracle, a gift from God, I remind myself again. Yet even the most precious of gifts must be delivered at some point, and I am determined to make it happen as soon as humanly possible. Oh, and what way is that? The same way half of this little miracle made its way in! 

“Ugh! Mulder, please can you roll me over again?” I’m actually whining as I plead for help. I, Dana Scully, have been reduced to moaning, whimpering, complaining, bitching, and whining more often than not lately. All in the name of pregnancy. 

“Sure, honey,” Mulder does one more sweeping circle with his palm around the curve of my massive belly before he pulls his hand out from underneath my night shirt. “But you do realize that I just offered to help you less than two minutes ago and you told me ‘absolutely not’.” I scoff and stare at his grinning face over my shoulder. “Actually, I think you’re exact words were, ‘absolutely not, and don’t even think about us rolling around on this bed together any time soon’.”  

“Mulder…” I’m irritated as it is with being so goddamned uncomfortable. But looking at him laying there shirtless with his sweatpants slung low on his toned hips while he smiles at me with that handsome face, makes me want to both kiss and punch him senseless. 

“Okay, I’m sorry.” He puts one hand on my lower back and the other up under my arm. “Here, just like usual. I’ll push and you roll. 1-2-3, go! 

“Ah, God! I can breath,” I sigh in relief. My belly is so heavy and everything aches. “Mulder, I don’t think I was ever this big or this sore with Will--Jackson.” 

“You don’t look  _ big _ . And you were that sore, by the way. I vividly remember you tossing and turning for hours before you finally got comfortable, and don’t get me started on all of those leg cramps I rubbed out in your apartment,” he laughs. “You’re beautiful, Scully. You’re glowing and you know for a fact that I love your pregnancy body. All your curves and slopes are accentuated. You’re breasts are heavy and so supple as they lay along the firm swell of your belly...”

He’s got that darkened look in his eye and that low growl in his voice that drives me insane. But I just can’t enjoy it right now with how much my back hurts, and that’s just aggravating me even more. 

“Down boy.” I rub my hips and smirk down at his prone body next to mine as he gazes at me with his bare arms behind his head, memorizing my 39 week pregnant silhouette barely covered by his old knicks shirt. “God, Mulder I really wish I had the energy because you laying there like that—pitching an incredibly large tent, is driving me mad!” 

“Oh, I can relate,” he licks his lips while his eyes wander up and down my body. “But it’s okay, you don’t have much longer to go. Then the real fun starts when baby comes!” 

I slide off the bed and massage the horrible ache in my back while I stare at my abundantly excited husband. I realize how truly blessed we are—how truly blessed I am to have not only one miracle in a lifetime, but three. Mulder is my miracle that has blessed me with two more. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mulder jolts up to his feet and palms my cheek while rubbing our baby that begins to kick between us. “You’re tearing up.” 

I hadn’t even realized. “Damn hormones. I’m fi—I’m okay,” I reassure him while he kisses my forehead. “Oh!” Suddenly, I have an urge to pee. “I need to use the bathroom.” 

I practically waddle through the bathroom door and yank down my panties just in time to feel a huge rush of warm fluid pour out between my legs, splashing the toilet bowl and under my thighs. “Oh shit!” I stand up to assess myself. Yep, warm clear fluid seeps out of my vagina and trickles down my inner thighs. My water broke. “Yes! Finally!”

Mulder knocks on the half open door. “Sounds like everything came out okay in there,” he chuckles at me squatting over the toilet with my panties stretching out like a rubber band between my ankles. I’m slightly stunned now at the sudden turn of events, but butterflies start to flutter in my stomach and I can feel a goofy grin plastered across my face. “Scully?” 

I wipe myself up as best as possible and pull up my panties. Mulder steps further past the doorway and I let him see the nervous expression and instant excitement within my eyes. He looks at me and he knows. Now, he is wearing his panic face but trying hard to politely hide it. 

“So, Mulder you think we can beat our fastest dry run hospital time?” I manage to joke through a growing tightness from my emotional laden throat. A wave of a cramping contraction surges up and around my belly and I wince as I grip the sink. 

Mulder’s at my side immediately, wrapping one arm around my waist as the other cups my jaw. “Never give up on a miracle.” 

Tears sting my eyes at his all too familiar words as I’m brought back to that night we shared in my old apartment. I look up and gaze at the man I can’t help but fall for over and over again. 

“That’s my Mulder.” 

_\---_   
  



	5. One Worried Mulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sick drugged up Scully finds it easier to talk to her Mulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m combining an angst/romance prompt with an earlier request for a pre revival sickfic. Since I’ve ready written a Mulder S-6 sickfic, I wrote a sick Scully this time.
> 
> Also, this is sort of a follow up story to chapter 1.

_Prompt: #72 "You need sleep."_

\---

_2016: Several months before MS1_

Mulder ran a hand through his hair for at least the tenth time with his phone glued to his ear as he paced the cold creaky floor throughout the unremarkable house. The fact that he had to resort to calling her office at the hospital at all this morning would be worrisome enough. But because he hadn’t heard from her at her usual once a week phone call time yesterday, he was concerned to say the least.

Truth be told, they had only started talking on a regularly scheduled basis for about three months now and had only seen one another in person sporadically since she’d left. But on one Friday night, Scully called him to discuss whether he was okay with celebrating Thanksgiving with her. Eventually, she had confessed that every night before bed she would stare at his picture in her room and tell him what was on her mind. Her therapist had advised her to bridge the gap and tell him herself. And that’s what she has done ever since, until last night at least.

His bare feet slapped along the hardwood towards the entryway door and he leaned his forehead against it, frustrated with a familiar nervous churning roaming his gut as the ringing of her phone continued to go unanswered.

Ever since his ‘whole life’ walked out of their front door he was currently grinding his head into, he has worked his ass off both physically and emotionally to find _himself_ again. And he knows that, with her own therapy, she has too. His depression and obsessions with the future and secretly searching for clues about William consistently for the last four years had secluded him even further away from Scully. And he hated it—hated everything about it, including himself. Yet, he just couldn’t stop himself from doing what she begged him not to do—go searching through the darkness without his light.

After a while, it finally dawned on him to really look at _her_ —his light—and what he saw scared the hell out of him. He painfully watched Scully’s own guilt and depression that she had tried desperately to keep hidden away, coil tighter inside, dimming that light, and choking her like a noose. All of it brewed into a perfect storm, creating the catalyst of that one dark night in 2014.

“Come on, Scully, answer the phone.” He ended the call to her house phone without leaving a message and quickly switched back over to her cell number. Mulder wandered over to the mantle where most of their shared items still sat, mocking him. Memories of their past that they had created together were collecting dust.

The ringing shrilled through the earpiece again as he stared at a recent photo of them taken at Margarets house sharing a kiss on New Years Eve just over a month ago. Scully hadn’t wanted him ringing in the new year alone and Margaret’s quick photography rewarded him with a rare memento of their halted intimacy that night.

 _They_ were better in 2016. Happier together than apart. Mulder knew she wasn’t ready to come back home yet and to be honest, he wasn’t either. Even so, his resolution was to make damn sure he was ready when she was. And that’s exactly why he was currently on the verge of panic as he leaves her yet another voicemail just minutes after receiving a callback from her office stating that “Dr. Scully had called in sick two days ago”.

“It’s me again, Scully. Please call me back. I’m worried about you and in fact, if you don’t call back in the next five minutes, I’m coming over to check on you. You know if you’re sick, I help you—no matter what, Scully,” he rushingly said and huffed as he clicked the end button, stuffing his cell in the pocket of his sweats.

Dammit, that’s just like her too. Her calling into work and telling them she’s too sick to work and no one else. Which in the language of Scully means that she literally cannot function enough to crawl out of bed and get dressed. Scully rarely ever got sick, especially after her cancer remission. Which Mulder knew the chip most likely protected her from any serious virus infecting her immune system. But when Dana Scully did feel ‘under the weather,’ as she called it, she was usually bedridden for days and completely reliant on him for help. Whether she admitted it or not.  

She must really be ill this time and that scared the shit out of him. Not being able to see her, to touch her, to dote on her when she normally would scoff at his babying, had his anxiety riddled heart nearly pounding out of his chest.

Yes, Scully was an excellent doctor and always has been. Yet, she was also his wife, his other half, his partner in every respect of the word, and had felt that way about their dynamic from the beginning.

He worried back then and worries still. It’s silly he knows, but he worries that if he doesn’t lay eyes on her for several weeks at a time then he might miss some subtle change in her appearance. Yet, he worries when he finally sees her face to face that he just might cry and beg her to come back. He worries more that she might even cry right along with him. But what he worries about the most while laying in bed alone at night, is that she might not care enough anymore to cry at all. He figured that this was some kind of cruel karma for all the worry he’d laid on her shoulders throughout the years.

But the fact remained, he relished every moment spent with her and worrying about her through every illness. Even when she hadn’t known about half of it.

Mulder had hoped to be the one she leaned on since the beginning if she’d ever gotten sick and shockingly, she had done just that. He would wait on her hand and foot, pretend to leave her apartment when she told him to go home and sleep, but would instead lay on her couch while she stubbornly thrashed alone in her bed just feet away from him. He’d bring her water and a cool rag to wipe down her sweaty skin when her cancer invaded her nights with fevers, or curl up next to her when the chills wracked her body so hard she couldn’t sleep. Mulder would even happily sacrifice what little sleep he did end up capturing to hold her hand while he sat scrunched up on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed just listening to her raspy breaths filling the silence between them.  

On nights like those, Mulder would quietly leave just before the sun came up, but not before placing a kiss upon her cheek that she would pretend to sleep through. It was just one of their many silent agreements that lay between them throughout the years. Much of their struggles were silent, yes, but it was their silent adoration for one another that screamed the loudest.

Breaking that silence was deafening—an altogether beautiful thing, and that’s exactly what Mulder intended to do all over again.

He ran up the stairs, threw on his shirt, and grabbed a couple personal things of Scully’s that she had left behind before he hurried out the door. The realization that _he_ was also one of those things that she had left behind, felt like a slap in the face.

Nearly slipping on the unsalted porch, it suddenly registered to him that the last time Scully stepped foot on the wooden beams beneath him, it was sprinkled with freshly fallen leaves and not snow.

Pushing aside a sudden new wave of woe, he tossed her things in the seat as the Mustang roared to life. It echoed into the cold February air as he put the pedal to the metal and raced towards the familiar D.C. city limits.   

\---

“Scully?” Mulder closed the front door of the smart house he hated and punched in her security code. He’d only been here a handful of times since she moved in eighteen months ago, and it looked exactly the same way every single time. Sterile and uncomfortable. “Scully, it’s me. Where are you?” He searched the tidy living room, tossing her things and his coat on the couch, and walked through the kitchen, taking in the scene of how clean and orderly everything seemed without him.

His head spun at the thought of her choosing this life over the one they built together.

The sound of coughing had him swiftly moving down the hall and into her bedroom. And sight before him, sucked him back almost twenty years in the past. The room was a mess. Her bed was piled high with multiple comforters, clothes riddled the floor by the nightstand which was covered with pill bottles and Nyquil. He took a step and noticed a giant wad of used kleenex in the overflowing trash can the floor next to her bedside. Mulder gasped when he saw that some were clearly stained in various shades of blood.  

No! It can’t be!

“Scully…” His heart was beating so loud, it was surely enough to wake her.

Her wild haired head popped up beneath the mound of blankets with a look of shock and relief in her expression. “Mulder?” she yelled out, swiping a tissue across her nose. “Ugh! There you are!”

Swooping down upon her without thinking twice about it, he grabbed the hand she had hovering over her nose and wrapped her up in a tight embrace, smashing her face against his chest. “Jesus, Scully you scared the shit out of me.” Pulling back when he heard her grunt, he held up her hand that gripped the used tissue and examined it. “No blood.”

“Mulder!” her droopy lids, stark white face, and red tipped nose had nothing on the overly loud barking sound of her voice. “I’m so glad you came!”

“What? Scully you never called me. And why are you yelling?” Looking at her sleepy confused face, he realized that she was probably drugged up on sleep aids and decongestants.

“Oh, I can’t hear very well!” He watched her eyes narrow as she tried focusing on reading his lips. “I’m talking too loud?”

He had to laugh even though he was still concerned over seeing her blood soaked into anything again. “Yes, but that okay,” he spoke louder than before. She tossed the mucous laden tissue over his shoulder and flung the blankets off her legs. “That would explain you not answering your phone I suppose.”

“My phone?” she questioned him quieter now with a crinkle in her brow.

“I called you over and over. I was worried.”

Reading his lips, she nodded and said, “sorry I haven’t gotten out of bed much yesterday or today. I’ve got an upper respiratory infection and a double ear infection and can barely hear with all this congestion. I’ve resorted to knocking myself out every chance I get,” she grinned.

Oh loopy Scully was always fun, but that didn’t explain the crimson streaks on the kleenex.

“What’s with the blood?” Her mouth opened and before she could utter a word, he jumped in and told her not to lie to him with the tone of his voice he hoped she could hear well enough. “Scully…”

“It’s not what you think, Mulder. I’m fine.” Mulder winced and she quickly amended her usual brush off line. “It’s not what you think. There are broken blood vessels in my nose and my lips were cracked and they bled on and off this morning.” She must have seen the relief wash over him as his eyes fluttered shut because she brought his hand up to her face and held it to her cheek. “I’m okay, Mulder. And… I’m really happy to see you.”

Mulder wasn’t shocked at her choice of words. She had told him several times when he saw him that she was happy to see him but the way she said them with such reverence, took him by surprise.

She removed his hand from her face and rolled out of bed onto wobbly legs. He grabbed onto her arm with one hand and clutched her slender hip with the other as she stumbled over a water bottle, making sure she didn’t face plant on the uncharacteristically messy floor.

She relaxed and sighed under his touch. “Thanks. My equilibrium is off a bit,” she chuckled with the volume of her voice wavering.

Mulder sat there staring at her as she closed the bathroom door, stunned at how easily she accepted his presence. Then again, she’d been confused and thought she had called him at some point in the last two days to come over. Glancing over at the medications lined up like soldiers awaiting orders, he understood why. All of these had the side effect labeled, _May cause drowsiness and/or confusion. Do not operate heavy machinery_.

Fucking great!

Now he had no idea if she really meant anything she has said so far to him tonight, let alone the possibility that she might not remember him being here at all tomorrow.

Swinging the door open, Scully gave him her now very rare and honest smile that’s done things to him since day one. She looked so small standing there in her bare feet and underwear wearing an oversized t-shirt that looked suspiciously like one of his missing workout shirts. She had no makeup on which highlighted the freckles scattered disobediently on her face. Without a second thought, he stood up, bent his head forward, and planted a kiss on her nose.

She gasped and cleared her throat. “Sorry,” he mumbled, not really wanting to apologize for kissing his wife as he locked his eyes onto hers. “I should probably take off then since I know you’re alright,” he pointed to the bedroom door over his shoulder with furrowed brows. “You need sleep.”

“What?” Scully looked up at him, her big blue eyes shining under the dim lighting. “You’re leaving? A-choo!” Scully sneezed then rubbed her ears, yawning. “Oh, that helped my ears. I can hear a little better now.”

Laughing, he repeated “you need sleep,” louder this time and rubbed her shoulder for his own comfort just as much as hers.

Scully cocked a brow and still too loudly blurted out, “not as much as I need you.”

Mulder’s smile faded slightly and felt his knees bob as the weight of her words smacked into him. “You seem high as a kite with all of those meds your on. Not to mention you probably have no idea what day it is and will very likely think this whole conversation was all a dream in the morning,” he reminded her, offering her an opportunity to take back her words.  

“Mulder?”

“Yes?” She stepped closer and his hand moved from rubbing her shoulder to rub the expanse of her back.

“I love you.”

“Oh brother,” he threw back, replaying their conversation from the past while clearly understanding now just how foggy her head is at the moment. Yet, no matter the context in which she spoke those three words to him, he always took them to heart.

He swallowed hard and looked away from her stare. It was safer this way. He could listen to her words or look into her eyes, but not both at once. He might not survive the honesty of her regret if she rescinded them.

“I miss you, Mulder,” she mumbled, and he could see her eyes glistening with unshed tears from his peripheral. “I do. So much. It's just… Just not time for me to come home yet.”

He risked looking into her bright blue eyes again, his stomach churned, and his throat tightened so much that he thought he’d choke right there. “Oh I know, Scully. Me too—and you’re right.”

Even in her increasing lethargic state, she managed to toss him a perfectly arched brow and a mock look of surprise.

“Yes,” he said louder, ensuring his words wouldn’t be blamed on pain meds, muffled congestion, and swollen eardrums. “You’re right, Scully. It’s not the right time. For either of us; not yet.”

He watched a lone tear leak out of the corner of her red rimmed eyelid and slide down the swell of her pale skin that she didn’t even attempt to hide. He fought the urge to swipe it clean—to wash away evidence of her sorrow. It was exactly that; evidence that her internal pain equaled his own.

“Soon,” she nodded and limply held out her hand to him. He took it gratefully and she laced her fingers within his. “Stay with me tonight.”

“Are you sure?"  
  
"I want you here and you sleeping all the way out on the couch isn't going to help right now. It's running away and that's what I do, not you."  
  
Mulder balked at the sharp self-deprecating words she’d just used. That was the sort of thing he has hear himself say many a time. Not Scully. If she felt that way, she had never expressed that to him before. The concoction of medication had loosened her lips—breaking through the silence.

Forcing himself to brush off her words, he pushed back the comforter and sheet and as she slid in, gingerly laying her ear atop the propped up pillows.

“Oh, I brought over a couple things from the house for you. It’s probably unnecessary now that I’m thinking about it, but I know how much you love wool socks and your eucalyptus body cream.”

Her heavy eyes lit up and she smiled. “You brought me my blue wooly socks, Mulder?” To him, she sounded too excited over a pair of socks she had likely replaced long ago. But looking at her face, he saw that she really was. “You know me so well.”

“That I cannot deny. I’ll get them for you.” He went to the couch and grabbed her slippers and lotion, feeling pretty excited himself at the thought of being useful to her once again.

Mulder sat the container of green body cream onto the only open spot next to the near empty Nyquil bottle and knelt at the edge of her bed. Scully outstretched her bare legs into his waiting hands so he could slide her navy blue wool socks onto each small foot. If it were close to two years ago and she had done this to him, Mulder would have massaged the minty smelling lotion into her feet from heel to toe and sensually worked his way up her soft slender body until she begged for more. Right now, he would just have to be grateful she was letting him comfort her at all.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Scully, you know I love your little feet,” he smirked and reluctantly removed his hands from her ankles. She didn’t move to cover herself back up so he stood to adjust the balled up comforter around her, but her hand wrapping around his bicep halted his progress.

“Lay here next to me.” It wasn’t a question and Mulder opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off. “Come on, Mulder. No reverting back to sitting on the floor uncomfortable while you stay awake and hold my hand all night long. Please just… hold me tonight?”

Blinking away rapidly rising tears, he nodded and responded the only way he could. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, whispering along her skin, “I can do that.”

Mulder carefully climbed over her and pulled the blankets up, tucking it around them. Her bed seemed huge, the space between them cavernous. It felt good to be this close to her like this again, too damn good and his arousal blooming beneath his sweatpants agreed immensely.

He slowly wrapped his arm around her waist and she laced her fingers between his as a silent thank you. The back of her chest rose and fell in tandem along the front of his own and he knew if he closed his eyes, he could picture every single night spent embracing is wife in their shared bed. But he didn’t close his eyes, didn't dare. Because he knew that the next time he and Scully lay in bed, It wouldn’t be in their shared one together.  

“Sleep, Scully. I’m here.” Mulder pressed his lips to her ear and rested his head along the crown of hers.

Breathing deeply now, he felt her slight nod and her backside snuggled in closer, no doubt noticing his ill-timed erection.

“Mulder...”

“Yeah.”

Scully tucked their entwined hands under her chin and he felt the heat from her lips warming his fingers. Waiting with bated breath for her next words, Mulder moved down and nuzzled his nose through her mussed hair, inhaling her scent within the crook of her neck. It was something so familiar and comforting to them both, showing her affection like this as they laid alongside one another. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.  

“I meant what I said,” she murmured.

“Said about what?”

“That I’m still in love with you,” she turned her head towards her shoulder when his breath hitched. “I may be medicated and half asleep, but I can never forget that. I never want you to either.”

He kissed her neck, her cheek, her ear, and told her, “and _you_ forget, Scully, that I could never forget _anything_ about you.” He heard her sigh and felt her whole body melt into the mattress. “You need sleep,” he reiterated.

Mulder moved his mouth away from her face before he made a mistake and gave in to the powerful urge to kiss her once more. This time on the lips, crossing over their convoluted line of separation.

When her breathing slowly evened out minutes later and sleep reclaimed her, Mulder carefully untangled their fingers while he gently moved out of her embrace. He stood at the end of her bed, taking in every detail of her peaceful face before he needed to force himself to leave. The uncertainty of when his eyes will meet hers again was sure to follow.

He set the house alarm and got into his car, missing her already. He missed seeing her smile, the caress of her touch, the comfort of her warm body next to his lulling him to sleep every night. He missed his Scully. But tonight, Mulder was lucky enough to witness the fact that his Scully had missed her Mulder just as much.

 _\---_  



	6. Wonders Of The Witching Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post series fluff! You’ll like it!

Prompt: You need sleep. From @baronessblixen

——

It happens in the dead of night, the witching hour. She rolls on her back and reaches for him. Her once heavy eyes now alert and bright. 

“Mulder,” she says carefully, as if her voice could cause a wave and undo it all.

He groans and flops a hand over his face. “You hungry again?” Her brow twitches as she fights a smile because she is. His hand finds hers effortlessly in the dark, lacing his slender fingers through hers. A perfect fit every time. 

“Feel her, Mulder.” She watches his eyes pop open, gleaming with instant excitement in the moonlight. 

He moves closer, humming as his hand slides under her night shirt—his shirt—and palms the curve of her belly. “Mm,” he grins. His moss eyes never leave hers. 

She squeezes his hand, telling him to wait for the next surge and tumble beneath the warmth of her skin. Their eyes dance with one another as she rubs her thumb along his pronounced knuckles, re-categorizing each line—both old and new. 

The familiar comfort of their duality multiplies in a just few short months. The notion that they had shared this feeling only briefly once before she knows is not lost behind the slow blinking of her lids; and Mulder nuzzles his mouth along hers in comfort. 

He caresses and memorizes every inch along the swell and dip of her bulging womb that nurtures a miracle. Once thought to be forever empty, now full of life—their whole life. 

She sighs and mumbles along his bottom lip. “Talk to her. She’ll move for you.”

Smiling, he lifts and brushes the cotton up over her full breasts, exposing her completely as he trails kisses down the valley leading to her swollen apex of their love. “And I’ll feel it this time? 

She nods while he holds his lips to her navel. This is what he’s missed before. This is what she makes sure he never misses again.

His voice blankets her, thick and heavy as he soothes words of wisdom to his daughter. She feels a shift of tiny limbs coiling, ready to strike and make their presence known. She smirks at his widened eyes and covers his hand with hers. And it’s then under the glow of the midnight moon, that Mulder feels their baby girl move for the first time. 

He gasps and proudly smiles so wide that she loses contact with his misting gaze. A nudge to the left, and a poke to the right undulates her belly like a small wave as their baby dances her way deeper into their hearts. 

Mulder’s hands completely cradle her sides with his gentle touch as a small foot glides slowly across the expanse of her hips, leaving an imprint of her delicate round toes as she goes. 

A sudden rise in emotion crests in her throat when she sees the wondrous look of awe and admiration seize the love of her life. 

It’s the exact look she saw grace is face eighteen years ago. 

“Mulder…” she whispers, raking her fingers through his silky hair as he grins up at her with a trembling chin. 

They stay that way together, staring, touching, and loving as time seems to slow just for the three of them. 

Another bump and flutter ripples across her taut skin. “You need sleep, little one,” she coos, reveling in the taste of each word rolling off her tongue once again. 

“No, Scully,” he rumbles against her, fingers splayed over their child. “She doesn’t need sleep during the witching hour. She’s half mine, remember?”

——

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback please cause I need it! 🤷♀️ Thanks for reading!


	7. Worth Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder tells Scully what makes life worth living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this on tumblr earlier this week but I ended up switching up the ending a bit so if you read it there, and chose to read this again, that’s why it’s slightly different.

Prompt: “You make everyday worth living.”

——

The body waits for them, centered among yellow crime scene tape within the mist laden field. The sun is setting and the sprinkling rain cuts through the low-lying fog like a knife.

“It’s cold, Mulder. Wanna tell me again why we’re here...” she waves her arm around, nearly clipping him below the belt with her fingers.

“Scu—”

“Getting wet, muddy, and going nowhere with this case?” Scully stomps her way in front of him through the thick, moist grass. The treads of her chunky above-the-ankle combat boots flick muck at him with every harsh sway of her hips.

She’s annoyed. Mulder had accepted this fact six hours ago. Yet the necessary step to determine whether or not they proceed any further, is currently stiffening face down in the mud as they argue.

“Process of elimination,” he sighs, flexing his hands from tight fists. “We see the body, confirm with our eyes cause of death, and hand the case back to the local precinct.”

“This is not an X-File,” she huffs and her words hover ominously in the air. Each stubborn footfall never falters as he watches her mind spin with rationalization. “Hasn’t been one all day.”

He runs a hand roughly through his damp hair and chews his bottom lip. He’s _annoyed_ too. The last six hours of bickering with his partner—whom is much more than just anything to him—has Mulder wound tighter than Scully’s ass at the moment. He feels the last strand of his remaining restraint for keeping his feelings to himself edge closer toward the verge of snapping.

Closing in on the scene, Scully continues to mutter to herself. “I’m tired… and I come back from a hellish vacation—ruined by an X-File of all things—and jump right into an exhausting dead end case,” she scoffs, still fighting with her travel umbrella she refuses to let him assist in opening. “I need…” she slows, and with one long legged stride, he looks down and sees contemplation spread across her brow. “Hell, I don’t know what I need.”

Mulder tests the waters by brushing away one wild strand of auburn hair plastered against her cheek, and gently tucks it behind her ear. The tenderness of his touch seems to stop her in her tracks just feet from the crime line. Her eyes flicker in the light of the setting sun, and he realizes that he has no idea what she’s really hiding within their sea-blue depths.

“A hot bath,” he suggests with a lilt, ultimately replacing the sheer veil between them that separates friends from lovers—cutting off the unresolved romantic tension that permeates the air around them.

Her tongue glides along her top lip, then clears her throat. “Something like that,” she whispers and ducks under the yellow tape.

Minutes later, they agree the cause of death was self-inflicted and since the elderly man had lost his wife three months prior, no next of kin would need to be notified. Their case was closed.

Crouching with elbows on his knees, Mulder catches Scully’s eye and says, “you’re wondering why he’d do it.”

She shrugs, and he sees that she already knows the answer. She’s waiting for a deeper explanation—one which she needs to hear come from Mulder. No one else.

“He had nothing left. No one.”

Her brow creases. “No one who depended on him, you mean.”

With a slow shake of his head, Mulder stares right through her. “No, Scully. No one to keep living _for_.”

“Well… I guess there are some people who don’t, Mulder.” Sorrow trickles out in her tone, and he _feels_ it.

Right then, that last strand of restraint snaps free within his chest. “Do you?”

She blinks. Her hands grip at her thighs, and she slowly stands while his eyes continue to dance with hers. Her chin drops to her chest and her lashes flutter shut. Silence reigns as he watches her internal war between answering him with the safe platonic response, and the deep-seated romantic one rages on.  

“Because I do, Scully,” he tells her with vulnerability no doubt shining through each syllable. Her eyes fly open, locking onto his. Her chest heaves beneath her soaking shirt, and the hollow of her slick throat glistens with her rapid pulse under the dimming light. The other voices around him fade and everything blurs except for Scully gazing down at him, waiting. “ _You_ make everyday worth living.”

He witnesses the moment she absorbs the true meaning of his words, sees how he tears away the veil and exposes his heart. The truth that he can’t live without her; that she is his light in the dark; that there is no Mulder without Scully.

She sucks in a gasp and presses a hand over her heart. “ _Mulder…_ ”

And the way she says his name as a smile grows slowly along her parted lips, shimmering in the cold rain, is the only reply he really needs to hear that will leave him warm until the day she finally says it back.

——

  
  



	8. A Lie To Find The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene in Redux. Scully’s pov.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the angst but I feel like it’s the only way to do this justice.

_Prompt: word: tattoo// sentence: “you think I’m being paranoid but the truth is I’m worth more to her dead than alive.”_

——

Staring at the partially burned PBX phone number list, Scully shakes her head in disbelief. “Mulder, how long has this been going on?”

“Maybe since the beginning. Since you joined me on the X Files.” His voice is low and laced with regret. 

“That would mean for four years, we’ve been nothing more than pawns in a game. That is was a lie front the beginning.” She scoffs, sickened to the point of nausea. “Mulder, these men… you give them your faith and your support to trust them with your life.”

He kneels before her with a furrowed brow and touches her hand for reassurance. “There are those who can be trusted. What I need to know is who among them is not,” he gives her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I will not allow this treason to prosper—not if they’ve done this to you.”

She wants to see the same thing: justice that might come too late. “Mulder, we can’t go to the bureau making these accusations.”

“No,” he agrees. “But as they lie to us, we can lie to them. A lie to find the truth.”

Her eyes lock on to his, the only one she can ever truly trust, and offers up a plan to save him and just maybe beat the game they’ve unknowingly been playing for years. 

Concerned and exhausted with concocting a plan, Scully pins Mulder with a look of resigned frustration and moves back into her bedroom. Knowing full well he won’t follow, she beckons him instead. She doesn’t question her need to keep him close. 

Scully hesitates but under the dimness of light, lets boldness take hold. Feeling his somber stare, she turns her back to him and swiftly tears her shirt over her head. Her bra slides unceremoniously to the floor next before she peels her pants down each gastly white leg. The heat of his eyes burn along her exposed skin. Caring less each day about keeping their platonic status quo, she takes her time slipping on her night shirt, licking her lips as her nipples harden. Time is something she has very little of, but could easily spend it all on the man ready to defy a government set on killing them both. 

He grunts and she glances at him clenching his fists in the doorway. “Maybe I should get a tattoo, too,” he comments. Her eyes flick over to his darkened ones. “Get a little wild before They claim the rest of my life.”

She huffs. “Is that what you think I did?” If only he knew she had effectively marked herself where he touches her most, permanently claiming  _ her  _ in more ways than one. “I… you’re not going to die, Mulder. I am; and if I can help save your future, make them pay for playing their twisted game, I’m going to do it.”

“My life—my future is meaningless if I let that happen, Scully.” He looks away with clenched teeth. “If they take your life, they claim mine.”

She exhales slowly, sudden tears pricking her eyes. “You think it wouldn’t be the same for me?” 

“I don’t know,” he rasps and steps closer, watching as her eyelids well and threaten to spill down her cheeks. “I do know that you don’t have to do this. I want to make that clear.” 

“I told you before, I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anyone but you, Mulder. I meant it.” 

Silence reigns as he reads her convoluted emotions dancing across her face. 

“Okay, Scully. Okay.” He reaches up and swipes clean a lone tear trickling down her jaw. Scully rarely lets tears fall but she can’t seem to find the strength to hold them back. “Let’s win this time, partner. Together.” 

He turns and walks away, leaving her blinking and breathless. When she hears the front door click shut, she follows slowly after him and palms the wood, rocking her forehead along the cool surface. Fear spikes down her spine that the moments spent alone with him like this were numbered. Clenching her eyes shut in an attempt replace the shield around her heart, she hears his muffled whispers. 

“No, she wants to do this. I want to keep her safe as long as possible, Frohike!” he hisses. “But, I respect her enough not to fight her choice to lie and risk everything. I asked for her help.” She hears him grunt and let out a resigned sigh. “You think I’m being paranoid but the truth is I’m worth more to her dead than alive.” 

His garbled voice trails off as familiar footfalls make their way down the hall just in time for her heart to shatter, sending whimpering sobs through her soul. She takes the time to mourn their past spent together on the floor of her empty apartment before she stands determined to fight for  _ his _ future and make Them pay for the past. 

——


	9. A Dance In The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully in the heat of the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the trope mashup prompt: Pregnancy fic and PWP (porn without plot)!

——

“Scully…” Her voluptuous silhouette glows like the sun in the moonlight as his fingers dance along the backs of her parted thighs.

The curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, the perfectly rounded swell of their shared love rippling beneath her taut belly makes his heart race.

She’s hot and slick as he enters, sliding every inch of velvet steel through her folds until he’s fully immersed. Her head snaps up against his shoulder and she moans deeper and longer along his jaw with each sure plunge of his cock. 

He pumps to the song of their coupling, slow and deep as she fists the covers. They sigh, rocking together in a sweet, lazy rhythmic dance. He palms his child—the truth swaying above the bed sheet, cradling all the answers to the mysteries of the world. 

She arches, sleek and swollen as her fingers lace through his. Snapping his hips, his mouth drags across the sweat dappled blades of her back to trail kisses along her tilted neck, the shell of her ear, murmuring his love for her to the cadence of his thrusts. She gasps and rolls her hips, clutching his wrist tucked under the weight of her swaying breast. 

“Muld-” she keens with his perfectly angled pitch, shaking gloriously under the collision of flesh as he trembles and spills his soul into her. A gush of hot fluid trickles down the vee of her inner thighs as she comes apart beneath him. 

Minutes later, they lay sated and sweaty in tangled sex-laced sheets, braided together like rope holding them in the moment. 

He watches her pinkened cheeks sprinkled with freckles dimple into a lazy grin. Feeling her belly tighten beneath his circling fingers, he rasps, “I think that one finally did it.”

“Mm… my water broke after my orgasm,” she slurs and his heart races anew. 

——


	10. When IT Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully gets a peek into the secret side of Mulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from admiralty: In my headcanon, Mulder is the one of the two of them who gets scared during scary movies. Can you write the first time Scully discovers this?

——

 

Scully sits at her desk, pecking away at the addendum on her End Of Case Report regarding the Succubus who had attached itself to Skinner of all people. The Fright Fest marathon is left flickering across her TV screen because she can’t find the remote, and the living room lamp bathes her apartment in a calming ambiance. 

The calm has always helped her to focus in the past, yet the last few years spent working with Mulder has replaced the old version of what “calm” means to her. Calm no longer consists of time spent alone in the silence of solitude. Calm now equates to the soft sounds of Mulder murmuring to himself as he reads through case files; the faint scent of Mulder’s cologne drifting over to her side of the office; the repetitive tapping, flicking, and rolling of Mulder’s pencils along the desk…  _ Mulder _ is Scully’s new calm. 

Tonight, he is on his way over to help with their bi-yearly review papers. Two out of the three years that they’ve been partners, she has been the one who filled out the God-awful things while he gathered the receipts and flipped pencils into the ceiling. Not this year. She about fell over when he offered to do his half of the paperwork as long as he could crash her exciting night of JAMA reading to do so. 

The triple knock on her door followed by the usual  _ “It’s me” _ sends an instant smile across her lips. “Come in.”

“Hey, Scully.” At the sound of his voice, Queequeg comes barreling down the hallway yipping away at the man intruding on his domain. “And hey to you, too.” 

“No, Queequeg,” Scully shames the orange ball of fluff still barking and prancing around Mulder’s feet. “It’s just Mulder. Shh, sit.” 

Mulder looks down with a scrunched nose, simply stepping over her excited dog, and makes his way inside. “You sure you’re feeding that thing enough? I could always toss him the broccoli you force me to order with my noodles just to be sure.”

“One of these days  _ that thing _ will grow on you,” she urges and pretends to refocus on her report. 

He chuckles and when he thinks she’s no longer looking, Mulder quickly ruffles Queequeg’s fur. “Like something akin to a foot fungus is my guess.” 

Biting back a smile, she returns to typing and hears the rustling of plastic and him shooing away a nosy Pomeranian. His close proximity delivers a heavenly smell of fried rice and freshly showered Mulder that wafts up right up her nostrils.  

His presence, as comforting as it is, is also distracting. She’s nearly done with the last paragraph and knows if she doesn’t finish it now, it won’t get done tonight. 

“Didn’t think I’d actually show, did ya?”

As her fingers fly across the keyboard, keeping her eyes trained on the monitor, she mumbles, “You never cease to amaze me, Mulder.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say? The thought of you spending the night alone watching chick flicks while thinking endlessly about missing your partner lead me here like a moth to a flame,” he banters.

Typing away, she huffs out a laugh. “You sure you’re not describing your own Friday night?”

His shoes thud along the floor and she listens to him strip off his jacket, trying very hard not to look up and watch the show as that familiar calm drapes around her.

“Nah, I’d never watch  _ Lifetime _ without you, Scully.” She shakes her head, hiding her grin, and quickly finishes her last sentence as he makes his way past her TV. 

“I’m not watching  _ Lifetime _ , Mulder, and I never have any spare time to miss you,” she lies. 

Instead of a hearing a witty quip, Scully hears a gasp and sudden scuffle of feet as he stumbles. 

She drops her chin to her chest and her reading glasses creep down to the end of her nose. She stares at her partner clad in a tight, grey T-shirt and jeans with one hand fisted at his side as the other makes a terrible attempt to cover his gaping mouth. “Mulder?”

Silence reigns as she watches the line in his brow crease and his posture go rigid.

_ What the hell? _

“Hey, Mulder…” She pulls off her glasses and moves over to his side, her bare toes gripping the carpet in anticipation. His eyes are big and glued to the screen. She follows his gaze over to the image of an insidious clown hiding in the shadows, looming over its next victim. “You okay?”

Her fingers graze across his skin and he instantly jumps, letting out a high pitched squeak. “IT… I mean, it’s okay, I’m fine.” He’s breathless and she can see his pulse racing against the lean muscles of his neck. 

“Mulder you shrieked, what…” she trails off as the situation finally dawns on her. Fox Mulder is afraid of scary movies. 

He just shakes his head and shrugs, spinning around to avoid eye contact. As he pulls out the Chinese food, he scoffs and mutters, “Funny huh? Spooky Mulder gets freaked out by killer clowns.”

_ Clowns.  _

She has no idea what to say so she just whispers, “Oh.”

He flops down on the couch in front of her, flicking the dog hair off his pant leg and peeks up at her through his long lashes. “Clowns in general, to be specific.”

She wants to reassure him that the sense of unease felt by sufferers of Coulrophobia is nothing to be ashamed of, yet the irony that her best friend—one who risks his life fighting real-life monsters as often as he does his dry cleaning, leaves her fighting hard against a rising giggle. 

Just as she controls herself and moves to dissuade his concern of criticism, Mulder busts out laughing. His near cackle startles both her and the dog, sending Queequeg running out from behind the couch with the missing remote control set firmly between his teeth. 

“Oh, Scully, the look on your face,” he chuckles, breathless and grinning. “It’s okay to laugh at me. I do.”

Shaking her head with a smile, she scoops up the chewed remote and tosses it to him. “Sorry, I don’t like laughing at you, or you or anyone else laughing at you for that matter. But the thought of you being afraid of clowns is just something I never would have pictured about you, Mulder.”

“Freaked out is a better descriptor. The circus was—is a reoccuring nightmare for me. The creepy clown vibe gets me every time.”

Scully finds herself smiling more tonight than she has in months. Mulder would say that was his fault as to why that is, yet  _ he _ is the reason she is smiling now, and that’s what matters most to her. As she sits down next to him and sorts through their food, she can’t help but concede to why these moments are rare, but fully admits that she’d like there to be a lot more of them. 

“Anything else that  _ freaks you out _ that I should know about?”

He nods as a noodle dangles from his bottom lip, and shivers with a look of disgust at the thought that strikes. “One other. But, let's save that one for future reference. I can’t tell you all my secrets just yet.”

“The secret side of Fox Mulder. I can hardly wait.” For some reason that idea titillates her, and she can’t help but look forward to the “yet.”

Fifteen minutes later, they sit quietly in the dim light of her living room, food eaten, and feet propped up on her coffee table; their calm before the inevitable storm. 

Mulder clicks through the channels and sighs. “So, you ready to knock out this paper work?”

“Nah,  _ IT _ can wait,” she teases without missing a beat. 

Groaning, Mulder rolls his eyes as Queequeg hops up on the pinstriped cushion next to him and trots across their laps, curling up in a ball next to her, smelling suspiciously like broccoli.

“I’m never going to live this one down, am I? He nudges her, shifting her side to lean against his. 

_ Calm. _

She stares at the  _ Lifetime _ movie now quietly playing out in front of them and smirks. “Don’t worry, Mulder, if we ever come across an X-File involving a scary, flesh-eating clown, I’ll be there to hold your hand.”

She watches him grin out of the corner of her eye just as her hand slips easily within his. 

“I think I’d like that, Scully.” He squeezes her fingers resting in his lap. “I know I would.”

 

——


	11. Undertow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An emotional Scully finds something of Mulder’s she hasn’t seen in over a decade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drabble prompt from @Baroness_Blixen: “How could you forget your son’s birthday?”

——

She sees the card laid out on his desk. That goddamn 99 cent card, worn down with age and silent rage. The same card he pulls out of his private box of internalized horror once a year, falsely believing that she hasn’t noticed. 

For the first time in twelve years—since 2002 when she had sifted through his laundry while on the run—she touches it, already knowing it will be her last time before she leaves. She runs her fingernail around the dull edges as she clenches her eyes and steels herself to read. 

She forgets to breathe as the simple words crash over her like a tidal wave. 

_ “Happy birthday!”  _ It says, and she nearly chokes as those same words uttered from him the night their miracle came into the world, bloody and beautiful echoes in her mind. A flash of her watching him cradle their wailing baby boy along his chest, teary-eyed and grinning, pulls her down deeper. She fights the undertow of emotion hiding beneath her calm surface as his familiar scrawl screams at her from above the roaring tide…

_ William, _

_ My son… you’re one today. You will never see this, but you are so loved. You always will be.  _

_ -Dad _

The word “Dad” is blurred with an aged water stain that makes the black ink bleed; and she feels the weight of it tangibly coating her skin, suffocating her. 

“Scully?” His voice is thick and horse behind her back. She feels the heat of him closing in on her and she stiffens. “You found it.” His statement has her shaking her head, trying to push it all back down so she can break through the surface. 

Repression has been her life preserver that she clings to for survival. 

“What is this?” She knows  _ what _ it is but she won’t ask him  _ why _ . If she does, she will get swept away with her love for him and surely drown. 

He exhales exhaustedly, his warmth tickling the side of her face. The overwhelming guilt of knowing she won’t be here to hold him together as he falls apart leaves an icy chill prickling across her skin. “How could you forget our son’s birthday?” he wonders, his hurt lancing through her chest. 

The tremble in his whisper is as faint as her will to keep fighting the abyss alongside him. She scoffs at the notion knowing that she relives their son’s birthday  _ every _ day. 

Blinking back the sting of tears, she looks her husband in the eye for the first time in what seems like days, whispering, “I could never forget.” 

And she never will. 

——  
  



	12. Crumbs And Oven Mitts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully’s on “vacation” in Maine and Mulder stops by her apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “You’re getting crumbs on my bed.”  
> From @Franipangidownunder

——

Mulder walked into Scully’s bedroom and flicked on the light. Her cream bedspread, which was tucked in with military-style precision, illuminated in an amber glow. “How ‘Scully’ of you,” he joked to himself. Nothing unusual in that regard. Only this time he was doing it while standing in Scully’s private sanctuary. 

She told him that she’d left a book of his she borrowed on the nightstand before leaving on vacation to Maine, just in case he wanted it back while she was gone soaking up the fresh oceanside breeze. Mulder hadn’t thought twice about it until the realization finally struck that she had actually invited him to invade said sanctuary while she was away. He had been grumbling to himself about missing his partner’s incessant questioning since she’d left him in the basement days ago, so this served as the perfect excuse to be surrounded by all things Scully. 

He missed _her_. Simple as that.  

Mulder took a bite of the sandwich he’d picked up from the deli down the road while he leaned down to grab his book lying next to her lamp. Just as his fingers touched the leather binding, her home phone rang loudly beneath his chest, startling the shit out of him and causing him to fling his half-eaten pastrami on rye across her pristine comforter. 

“Shit!” Mulder fumbled with a glop of mayonnaise stuck to his fingers as he attempted to swipe away the trail of crumbs littered along Scully’s side of the bed. He knew it was her side with how often they had stretched out together atop motel beds as they hashed out their cases. “This giant mayo stain will not go unnoticed,” he conceded with a cringe. 

The phone continued to ring, and with the late-night hour, Mulder decided to pick it up in case it were Skinner or Mrs. Scully calling with an emergency message. 

“Hello,” he answered breathlessly. 

“Mulder?” Several hours away, with her room phone cradled against her shoulder, Scully wondered curiously as to why her partner was answering _her_ house phone. Yet, not at all surprised he’d wandered his way over to her place. She would never admit as much, but she missed him, too. “I was just calling to check my messages. Why are you at my apartment?”

A rustling sound mingled with his raspy breathing echoed in her ear. 

“I... uh, well, I came to get my book. You know, the one you borrowed about Ponce de Leon after our nice trip to the forest.” 

“Uh huh.” She knew it was an excuse and could only smile against the mouthpiece in response. Hearing more rustling and crackling drift through the phone, she had a feeling she caught Mulder more off guard than she originally assumed. “What’s going on over there?”

“Oh, just sitting here talking to you, Scully,” he huffed out a nervous chuckle. “Your call just caught me in the middle of a quick dinner, that’s all. So... how’s the ‘this isn’t an X-File’ case coming along?”

“No way, Mulder, don’t change the subject. Are you eating in my room?”

“Define ‘eating’...”

Scully heard the bed creak - _her bed_ \- followed by the distinct sound of Mulder smacking his frustratingly pouty lips. 

“You’re getting crumbs on my bed, aren’t you?” 

Silence seeped through her earpiece and her jaw clenched. 

“Mulder!”

“I’ll clean it up. Scully-clean, too,” he promised. She could picture him holding his hand up in assurance with that meek puppy expression she’d long come to accept as endearing. 

“You’re lucky I already bought you a souvenir,” she sighed with a knowing smile. “Or you’d get nothing but guff upon my return home.”

“Oh, _nothing_ could be further from the truth when you’re here, Scully,” he admitted, and she could hear the grin in his voice. 

Scully glanced down at the small bag of mementos she happened to gather with what little free time she’d acquired between visits from Chief Bonsaint and her short-lived relaxation. She knew what the underlying meaning of the matching lobster shaped oven mitts signified to her, but she still bit her lip with sudden doubt about actually giving Mulder his gift. 

“Scully? Look, I know my impromptu proposal was—”

“Have you ever watched the TV show _Friends,_ Mulder?”

“Uh… no. Yes, I’ve heard of it, but no I haven’t watched it,” he stammered, obviously caught off guard with her abrupt change in subject. She found herself slightly disappointed that he wouldn’t get the reference made with her specific gift for him, even though the connotation made her nervous. “Why?”

“No reason,” she dismissed with a shake of her head, ready to drop the subject of referring to Mulder as her chosen mate in life as quickly as possible. 

She heard a knock on her motel room door and felt her shoulders slump. So much for relaxation tonight, she mentally sighed. 

“Scul—”

“Mulder, I gotta go. Jack’s at the door but I’ll call when I can,” she told him in a rush as she sidestepped her way around her suitcase. “And don’t forget to clean your mess.”

Just before she ended the call, Scully faintly heard his mumbled reply of confusion. “Who the hell is Jack?” 

  
——  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do realize the silly lobster reference in Friends was made after season 5 of TXF but I just couldn’t resist. For those of you who might not get it, Ross was Rachel’s lobster or “mate” in life. They always found their way back to one another, even when life got in their way.

**Author's Note:**

> These are prompts from the angst, fluff, and romance list on tumblr. I’ve only written a few so be gentle.
> 
> Feedback is my fav and I love to hear any thoughts on the stuff I write, because who doesn't right? ;)


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